Healing comes in stages. You start by distracting yourself, keeping your mind occupied with so much that you're unable to process your feelings. Then you move on to a brief period of self-doubt. You start reliving every memory, wondering if you were good enough - if there were things you could've done differently to avoid this heartbreak. Then comes the agony: you let yourself hit rock bottom, reliving all the good memories. The moments you wished could last forever, and you miss them. You miss them like a part of you has been stolen. But as you navigate through the good memories, you also come across some bad ones. You come face-to-face with their shortcomings, all the ways they weren't a right match for you, all the times they could've treated you better. And then finally, you reach the point where you understand your worth is far greater than what they made you believe, that you deserve so much more than they promised you. Someone like that is better out of your life than in it, you think, and that's where you truly start healing